Hermione's Secret
by Phoenix Lullaby
Summary: ..Oneshot..Complete.. Something happens to Hermione which causes great concern for Snape - why? And what happened to her? Kidnapping, and slight implied rape


_**Disclaimer: Anything you do not recognise is mine, anything you do is hers. So what's mine is not hers and vice versa. Oakies?**_

-------------------------

Hermione's Secret

-------------------------

Sunning themselves under the large Beech tree, Harry, Hermione and Ron were exhausted after their N.E.W.Ts. "Bound to be hard though," mused Ron, watching a dragonfly skim over the surface of the water.

"Hmmm . . . . " said Harry, who whilst obviously in agreement, couldn't be bothered to answer in a sentence. Rolling on to his stomach, Harry asked "Mione, what's wrong?" Gazing out across the lake, towards the Forest, especially after an exam as important as their N.E.W.Ts, was _not_ like Hermione.

"Oh, it's nothing," she said; feeling two pairs of eyes watching her intently.

"Come on Herm," Ron said, "What's up?"

"Nothing Ron!" came the vicious reply. With that, she jumped to her feet and stormed off towards the castle, Harry and Ron distinctly heard the sound of sobbing.

"Probably dropped a mark on question 13) b," muttered Ron – Hermione was still within earshot.

"Hmmm . . . . " muttered Harry. "Something's up. I'm going after her," With that, he got up and started walking towards the castle.

Ron, however, simply rolled onto his back, and tapped the end of his nose with his wand, muttering "_Iunar obicieci._" Instantly, a yellowy sun cream came out of his wand, covering his nose. "Great," sighed Ron, now perfectly content to sunbathe.

Sobbing, Hermione rounded the last corner of the Seventh Floor Corridor, only to bump into Vincent Crabbe. Grunting, he grabbed her arm and wheeled her around, facing the stairs. "Let go of me! Help! HELP!" cried Hermione as she was thrown over Crabbe's muscular shoulders. Beating her fists against his back, she fought to be free, but to no avail.

Walking steadily round the corner, Harry wondered where he ought to try. His first thought was the common room or the dormitories, but they would probably be too crowded. Library? Probably. With a more determined stride, he set off towards the fourth floor. As he passed, he noticed some of the paintings weren't quite meeting his gaze. Harry thought nothing of it. Finally he reached the fourth floor.

Ron rolled back onto his stomach, as neither Harry nor Hermione had returned yet. Looking at his watch, he saw it was 5pm. "Ouch!" Moving his arm caused his sunburn to rub. "Knew it was a bad idea to sunbath in a vest," mumbled Ron as he produced more yellow sun cream. Suddenly, he heard a yell come from the castle - someone shouting. "Hope it's Malfoy," Ron mumbled, just before dozing off.

Harry looked round frantically, behind all the various bookshelves. Not there. Skidding around a corner, ignoring a "Well I never!" from Irma, Harry strode out of the Library and came face to face with Crabbe.

He looked around, as if unsure of something, before he grabbed Harry by "the wrist and said "Seventh floor, fourth corridor, broom cupboard on your left," Slightly puzzled by this, Harry set of towards where Crabbe had sent him.. The truth was, he was getting very worried now, and wanted to find Hermione as soon as possible. When he reached the broom cupboard on the left of the fourth corridor of the seventh floor, he hesitated. What if this was a trap? Then he heard a muffled "oomph" from behind the solid oak doors. Slowly Harry opened the door.

Hermione wept silently. Not that she could have made any noise if she tried. Her mouth was gagged, her feet and hands were bound, and she could do little more than scream silently, as her hands were also tied to and iron ring off the wall. A very high iron ring. Her sobbing ceased, when she thought she heard footsteps. They seemed to stop outside her prison, but nobody came in, nor could she hear the sound of voices. She tried crying out for help, but just made an "oomph" sound. That was when the door handle slowly creaked open.

Expecting to see Hermione, Harry's face was prepared with a worried/relieved expression. However, when the door eventually opened, he saw nothing. Just as he turned to leave, he heard that noise again. Frowning, he walked round the room. Still nothing. His eyes wandered to the iron ring on the wall. It was twitching. Then he heard the noise again, coming from directly under the iron ring. His hand wandered around what he imagined to be Hermione's head, thinking she was under an Invisibility Cloak. Harry felt around for a minute, and then his hands found a slight material between them. Smiling slightly in triumph, he whipped off the cloak to reveal Hermione, stood, cowering in front of him.

Harry stood there, frozen in shock. Hermione didn't look like she'd done twenty minutes ago. Her hair was matted, there were cuts all over her body, her robes were torn to pieces, leaving her in just her underwear, and her eyes were swollen, bloodshot and bruised. "What happened to you?" Harry whispered in shock. Hanging her head in shame, Hermione muttered something about her hands. Moving swiftly, Harry reached up to the iron ring, and muttered "_Rescindo._" Immediatley, Hermione fell to the ground, landing on her already-bruised hip bone. Harry rushed forward to help her up, but only managed to knock into her stomach.

"Here," said Harry, helping her across the room. "_Sano_" he muttered, as he pointed his wand at Hermione's eye. Instantly Hermione felt the pain ease, and as she looked at Harry, she noticed he was wearing a strange expression. "What happened to you?" he asked swiftly, as Hermione had just opened her mouth to say something. She shut again, whilst thinking of a good enough response. It turned out she didn't need to. She felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around her, and, although she winced, she didn't mind. In fact, she snuggled into the crook of his neck, happy for the first time in ages. As Harry asked again what had happened though, she couldn't hold back the tears any longer.

She cried, slowly at first, but as Harry probed her gently for answers, she cried harder, soon, she couldn't help it. Stumbling to her feet, she walked over to the other side of the cupboard, staring at a spot on the wall. A lot of thoughts ran through her head then; but she finally turned around to Harry, who saw that she was tear-free. "I'm fine Harry, really I am. Just please don't tell Ron about this okay? I don't want him getting upset. Where's my wand?" Hermione sounded brisk and business-like again. Good. Now, her wand . . . "_Accio_ _Hermione's wand_!"

Harry caught it and threw it to her. She pointed it at her clothes and said clearly "_Suo_," Instantly; her clothes were back to normal. She quickly fixed her hair, and lessened the swelling on her hip, eye and stomach. "Right, let's go,"

In the dungeons, Draco Malfoy was celebrating. "Did you do it?" he hastily asked Crabbe as he walked through the portrait hole.

"Yep, all tied up and ready to go," came the automatic response.

"Good." With that Malfoy swept past Crabbe and smirked at a dumbstruck Goyle.

"You can do it next month," muttered and irate Crabbe. Goyle gwuaffed sycophantically at this suggestion.

Walking back towards the beech tree, Harry began to mull things over. Why was

Hermione like that? Why had she seemed so . . ._normal?_ Hermione had stopped

shaking, but still trembled every now and then, mostly out of fear. As they approached Ron, Hermione gently pulled on Harry's sleeve. Looking puzzled,

Harry looked around, only to see Hermione pointing at Ron, and trying not to laugh. As Harry looked, he saw Ron was covered, head to foot, in yellow coloured sun cream. Harry started laughing, and nudged Ron with his trainer.

"Wh . . what d'ya wake meh up for?" grumbled Ron. "Look at you Ron," giggled Hermione. Smiling Ron saw his predicament, just as Luna and Ginny walked past. Both girls flashed a smile at Harry and Ron, before giggling and walking off. Well, in Harry's opinion, Ginny swayed, quite nicely. A small cough brought him back to reality.

"Wonder what's for dinner?"

¤¤¤

Sitting across from them was torture. For everyone. Harry couldn't take his eyes off Ginny, who was sitting across from him, twirling her hair around her finger. Ron couldn't stop looking at Luna, who was deep in discussion with Melanie. Hermione kept glancing across at the far table, wondering if he'd seen her. He had. She quickly busied herself with serving the trio some apple crumble, when she felt something whoosh past her face. It was a Mortia - a breath of air so positively charged with love, it became visible to the naked eye.

Looking around, Hermione saw that Harry had his mouth open, and was staring at Ginny. Not him, as Ginny was sitting at the far end of the table. She glanced at Ron. He was staring at some point over her right shoulder. So it was him. Turning around, she saw that he was gazing dreamily at Luna. Smiling to herself, she munched through her apple pie.

After ten minutes, neither Harry nor Ron had touched their food. Kicking them both under the table seemed to work. Ron came out of his stupor, but Harry simply smiled.

"Harry, Harry!" Hermione hissed.

"Wh . . . what?" Looking confused, he looked at Hermione, then his food. "Oh."

"I've got to go and see McGonagall. See you tomorrow." Hermione quickly left.

"Why not tonight after she's seen McGonagall?" Ron asked. Harry thought he knew, but wasn't about to tell Ron. Not without asking Hermione first.

¤¤¤

"Enter," came the sharp voice of Professor McGonagall. Hermione took a deep breath, and suddenly panicked. Glancing down at her stomach, where her hands clasped a letter, she took another deep breath and walked in.

"Ah, Miss Granger. What is it you wish to discuss with me?" asked McGonagall, barely glancing up from the mountain of parchment.

"I need to tell you something," Hermione said nervously. "I didn't think I'd be able to tell you to your face so I wrote it all down."

Hermione then handed the sealed envelope to her Head of House before walking swiftly out of the room. Slowly she came to a halt, heart beating wildly. Looking around the corner, she saw a shadow coming her way, quickly she ran away, not wanting to be seen. Before she came to a halt, she realised she was down in the dungeons.

Professor Snape swept around the corridor, looking for miscreants. He turned another corner and bumped into Miss Granger.

"What are you doing down here?" Hermione looked into his eyes, and he immediately saw all the pain and suffering this girl had been through. Softly, he tried to use Legilimency on her, to pry deeper into her mind. Weak as she was, she slapped him back and the look in her eyes turned to confusion. Slowly she turned and walked straight towards the Slytherin common room. How she knew the password was anybody's guess. The stone wall slid open, to reveal a labyrinth of passages. Hermione muttered a spell, and a ball of silver unwound ahead of her, showing her the way.

Snape seemed frozen to the spot, staring after the girl. Once the passage way was sealed again, he was unfrozen. Silently, he worried what on earth had happened to his daughter…


End file.
